Child resistant packaging is understood to be a important concept for preventing inadvertent access by children, for example, to potentially dangerous liquid or dry products. However, inclusion of the child resistant feature adds difficulty and frustration for the adult user when attempting to open the package. Due to the difficulty in opening child resistant packages, many persons, especially elderly adults which may also have impaired strength and dexterity, could prefer a non-child resistant package substitute. Alternatively, when dangerous products are purchased in child resistant packages by adults, the child resistant package is often not reclosed in order to defeat the child resistant feature. As a result, the danger of child poisonings may increase in the homes.
The aforementioned problems are generally recognized in the packaging industry. Attempts to deal with these problems are also disclosed in the patent literature. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,948,002 issued to Thornock et al. on Aug. 14, 1990 discloses a package comprising a bottle, a collar which is secured in place over the uppermost portion of the bottle and a closure which is secured to the finish portion of the bottle. The collar preferably includes a pair of spring-like pushtabs containing vertical extensions which engage interlocking teeth on the innermost surface of the closure skirt when the closure is fully assembled onto the bottle. To remove the closure, the opposed pushtabs must be manually depressed prior to applying unscrewing torque to the closure to disengage the pushtab extensions from the interlocking teeth on the closure.
The package disclosed in '002 exhibits highly improved child resistance without significantly impeding access by adults. The package of document '002 has the collar as a transition piece between the container and the closure. This transition piece facilitates the engagement between the container and the closure. Nevertheless, this additional piece increases the manufacturing costs of the package. Indeed, to make the container, the transition piece and the closure making up the child resistant package three different manufacturing processes with three different machines are necessary. Usually, the container is blow molded or injection-blow molded, whereas the transition piece and the closure are injected molded. We found that a certain amount of manufacturing costs may be saved, if at least the closure and the transition piece are made in a single molding process, since they have a common manufacturing process.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a transition piece and a closure made in a single molding process for a child resistant package.